


a hint of resurrection

by Fruitsie



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Requited Love, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, josh thinks she just loves danger, let's say it's both, plot-driven romance, sam is tenacious, wendigo hunter!josh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:56:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5720080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruitsie/pseuds/Fruitsie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which The Stranger escapes unscathed. Like every action taken on Blackwood Pines that fateful night, this results in a chain reaction - a butterfly effect.</p><p>When Sam braves a return to the cursed mountain a year later to pay her respects, what she finds is Josh Washington: neither dead nor undead, but miraculously alive and in possession of a flamethrower.</p><p>“I can’t kill the monsters in my head,” he told her matter-of-factly, “So I kill the monsters on this mountain, instead.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. godspeed, pilgrim

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> This is my first contribution to the Until Dawn fandom, so I truly hope you enjoy. I love this game and I love these characters. I wanted to explore the idea of the Stranger more, and the possible ramifications of his surviving the wendigo attack on him and Chris - what that could mean for Josh.
> 
> At it's heart, however, this is a Sam/Josh fic. Because I love them. Expect many feels in amongst all this plot. 
> 
> Read on!

_‘Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.’_

\- Arthur Schopenhauer

...

 

Sam both loved and hated snow in equal measure.

It was beautiful to look at - she had always thought so - but the connotations that now came with it sent shivers running down her spine, like icy fingers dancing on the bone.

She watched the forest and the snow pass her by through the window. Another year, another bus journey to Blackwood Pines.

She could not see herself coming back after this was done; felt mildly deranged for choosing to come back at all, but she needed to do this at least once. They had left the mountain in a whirl of paramedics and police, whisked away via helicopter, all miraculously alive…if not battered and bruised, and nursing scars that couldn’t be seen on the outside.

It had all been so quick.

And there had been no time, no energy, to think upon the one who had been left behind. To say goodbye properly.

Sam talked about him a lot - felt better when she did. It was painful, but a good kind of pain, like ripping off an itchy bandaid. To her, talking about him was a necessary measure. She could not let herself forget him, let his memory sink, forgotten, to the dark bottom of her mind.

Josh deserved to be remembered.

Chris spoke about him, too. They’d spent a lot of time together over the past year, their deeper understanding of Josh’s secrets, his feelings - it had connected them in a way unlike with the others. She still saw a lot of Ashley, too - her and Chris were together now after all.

The thought made Sam smile, despite her growing nerves as they steadily climbed towards the foot of the mountain.

Ashley had more reason than most to despise the memory of Josh Washington - she had been one of the main victims of his twisted ‘prank’, unwillingly put in more than one situation where she was led to genuinely believe that she was about to die. Yet the girl had shown a surprising amount of understanding and remorse, in the end.

“We deserved it,” she told Sam and Chris one afternoon, curled up at the head of Sam’s bed, knees tucked under her chin. They had been talking about Josh. “We humiliated and shamed his little sister, so badly that she wanted to _escape_ from us. She ended up dying, her _and_ Beth, because we just happened to feel cruel that night.” Her voice broke, lowering her eyes. “I would have wanted revenge, too. I would have wanted to shove the people who did that to my sister off a cliff myself.”

“Hey,” Chris hushed her, going to sit beside her on the bed, rubbing her back. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’d say Josh got pretty even, right?” Always cracking jokes.

“That’s what I’m saying,” she told him urgently, looking to Sam, then back to Chris. “It was fucked up, and I would have _seriously_ preferred it if he’d just let rip at us, had a scream-o session…but we had it coming.” She wiped her eyes, sniffling slightly. Sam tutted and joined Chris on the bed, holding Ashley’s hand. She continued, “Josh was so unwell, suffering so much…his parents were always away, and he must have felt so alone, trying to deal with it all. We weren’t there for him. I was too ashamed to face him, after it happened. I felt too guilty.”

She looked at Sam. “At least you went to visit him, Sam. And you, Chris. Was he…” she trailed off, uncertain. “Was he off his meds, even then?”

Sam shook her head, eyes stinging. “No. He remembered to take them, mostly. But if I’d been there more, I might have helped him with that, too. Even I wasn’t around enough. I failed him.”

“Josh wouldn’t have agreed,” Chris told her wryly, looking suspiciously wet-eyed himself. “You could do no wrong in his eyes, Sam. We’d been best friends since third grade, but I know for a fact after the twins died it was you he felt most comfortable with. You were there when he called, every time. He knew that.”

Sam tried to blink the tears out her eyes, glad the bus was deserted save for herself.

_Why did he chase me through the lodge with a syringe and a clown mask, if he liked me so much?_ She thought to herself for the thousandth time, somewhat amusedly. _I had a freakin’ towel on!_

If Josh was here now, he would have made a joke.

_Samantha, babe, I wouldn’t have bothered chasing you if you were fully clothed - no chance of slippage, am I right?_

She did manage to see Mike now and then, too -  he lived further away than Ash or Chris, but the four of them still managed to meet up for the odd movie night or beach outing. They talked a lot over the phone.

Jess and Matt had even turned up once or twice for a get-together, although Sam saw a lot less of them than the rest. The pair had developed a close friendship, since they had looked after each other in the mines, and Jess still needed Matt to comfort her sometimes. She wasn’t seeing Mike anymore, though they remained friends. It looked like it would be a while before Jess would be ready for any sort of romantic relationship.

Emily was all but off the radar. She had broken up with Matt. In the end, Matt had told them, Emily needed to leave all traces of The Incident behind in order to move on with her life; to feel normal again. Even if that meant leaving Matt, too.

Sam couldn’t say she blamed her. She felt remorseful to have lost a good friend so abruptly, with little more than a handful of texts exchanged, but people reacted differently to trauma, she supposed. Some grew closer, others grew apart.

“Miss? Mi-ss?”

Sam startled, realising the bus had stopped.

The driver was eyeing her over his shoulder. “We’re here, ma’am.”

Her heart was in her throat, and her muscles felt as if they were on the brink of freezing over, rooting her to her seat. Somehow she made her way down to the front of the bus, trying not to feel like she was walking to the gallows.

“Sorry - thank you!” She hesitated on the bus steps. “The last bus is at 5:15pm, right?”

“That’s right.” He seemed to consider the colourful bouquet of flowers she held in a death grip. “You’re not stayin’ the night, I take it.”

He was joking, but Sam was deadly serious when she told him, “No. I’m not.”

 

…

 

She spent a good five minutes stood at the bus stop, staring.

It was a bright, clear day, without a cloud in sight, yet the tree line rising above her still looked as dark and ominous as she knew it did at night.

_Or my mind is just freaking the hell out about this,_ she considered, _and will never be able to see this wood as anything but dark and ominous._

The large sign - ‘Blackwood Pines’ - hung from the wooden gateway at the mouth of the forest. It may as well have read ‘Welcome To Hell’ for all it filled her with dread.

_One foot in front of the other, Sam. You’re a rock-climbing nature freak, for Christ’s sake - it’s not the forest you need to be scared of._

No. That would be the monsters that inhabited it - the Wendigos.

She wandered up into the trees, reminding herself of the shotgun and set of flares she’d just about managed to fit into her large hiking backpack. Mike had really come through in that regard. He had been the only one she had told about this little venture, partly because she needed his help getting weapons (just in case) and his Dad was a total weapons nut, and partly because she and Mike were quite alike - they did what they felt needed to be done, and damn the rest. He had tried to talk her out of it, of course, but in the end Mike had understood her well enough to let her go, with a promise not to tell anyone.

_Josh hadn’t known about the Wendigos_ , she remembered him saying once. _He wouldn’t have brought us all back there, if he’d known. He’d only wanted to scare us, not hurt us. Kinda makes me feel bad for hitting the asshole. Felt damn good at the time, though._

Josh.

They had searched for weeks, just like with his sisters, but found nothing. She had considered that Josh might not be dead - not technically. If he was one of those _things,_ then she was all the more determined to be gone long before the sun began to set. It was one thing to be brutally murdered by a Wendigo, quite another to be brutally murdered by a Wendigo who used to be her best friend, the one she confided in, the boy whom she’d known since she was fourteen…the boy who used to dance around her whilst she danced around him, an undercurrent of something hot and fluttering never spoken about, never realised.

It defied definition.

If she was braver, maybe she would go back down into those dark mines and try to free Josh of his pain once and for all. At least she would know, then, that he was at peace - with his sisters again like he’d longed for.

If she was braver.

Sam comforted herself with the knowledge that the Wendigo - _Hannah_ \- who had taken him would not have simply let him live down there long enough to starve, to eat human flesh. She must have killed him, if not instantly, then when she next got hungry, which for those creatures seemed like _always._

Sam hoped it had been quick.

The sharp call of a bird brought her out of her dark thoughts, and she realised she had found the lower cable car already.

“Nice,” she murmured to herself, picking up speed, “Guess my feet remember the way better than I do.”

The cable car station key was a heavy weight in her pocket - a last present from her lost friend.

She was relieved to find it still worked, and boarded the car feeling almost optimistic.

“At least I know I won’t have to walk all the way back down,” she joked with herself, watching the mountain pass beneath her, every tree and ice-riddled stream vulnerable to her sharp gaze.

_But a sadly missed opportunity to wear those hella tight yoga pants of yours,_ she imagined Josh teasing, as if he were sat right besides her. _A nice, sweaty jog to get the heart pumping._

_You wish._

_Hell yeah I do._

By the time she’d exited the upper cable car station, the sun was high in earnest, and Sam estimated it to be around just-gone midday. She checked her phone: 13:27pm.

She had plenty of time. Sunset wasn’t until 6:20pm - she’d checked and re-checked on a hundred different local weather sites. There was a supposedly quaint little B&B residing in the town of Blackwood, just a few miles from the base of the mountain - she knew she could book a room there tonight if she for any reason ran late and missed her flight, or if she simply felt too exhausted to fly back home the same day. She could recharge her phone and call Mike, let him know she was OK.

She had tried to think of everything. Sam wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near this place without a plan.

_Caught dead. Nice one. Bah-Dum-Tssh._

The walk to the lodge was quiet, almost peaceful. Sam could hear birds calling to one another, the rustle of dying leaves and the crunch of snow beneath her boots. These noises reassured her. She knew that when a predator was about, birds tended to fall silent, as if hoping to go unnoticed.

_Don’t. Move. Don’t move a muscle._

She shuddered, remembering, and inadvertently increased her pace.

Like all of them, Sam had woken up in the middle of the night sweating and even crying, tormented by dreams of monsters that didn’t just live in her mind, but she knew to be real. Ashley had still been in possession of the Stranger’s creepy handbook, detailing the hows and whys of Wendigos from A to Z. Ash hadn’t wanted it, so she gave it to Sam.

Sam had read it from back to front. It was a disheartening read, to hear of how fast the creatures were, how thick-skinned and clever - they could imitate their prey perfectly. Sam knew this was true because Ashley had told her she’d heard Jessica’s voice in the mines, calling for help, but it later came to light that Jessica had been nowhere near the rest of them at the time.

She shuddered to think what might have happened had Ashley gone to check it out.

_They can’t see you when you’re still_ , she reminded herself. Their vision worked on the principle of movement, which made sense - it was practically every species’ deeply ingrained instinct to run away from danger - and that was what the Wendigos used to their advantage. Humans were no different. Sam had found it nigh impossible to stay still when that huge, skeletal figure had loomed above her, fangs dripping.

She found it even harder to connect Hannah, her _best friend_ , to that same creature, but the tattoo had spoken for itself.

_At least she’s at peace now._

The lodge loomed through the trees at the end of the trail, and Sam was shocked at how different it looked.

“Wow…”

The last time she’d seen the place, it has been a flaming wreck, burned to char and full of wailing Wendgio spirits, released to the air. Now it looked almost identical to how it had been before - perhaps with slightly different window fittings, and a new door. No police tape in sight. She knew that the Washingtons had rebuilt and furnished the place, though she couldn’t really understand why they’d bother - if it was her, she would have scrapped what was left of the lodge and forgotten all about it. Would they honestly ever want to use it again? After all three of their children had met their ends here?

Sam got her answer when she approached the front of the lodge and saw a large, blue sign rattling slightly in the breeze.

_SOLD_

“What in the hell?” She looked around, as if waiting for someone to jump out and shout ‘Psych!’

She touched the sign, trying to comprehend why it was there. “Who would want to buy this place, seriously…”

It had been all over the news, of course. And whilst as a group they had all agreed to gloss over the finer details of Josh’s prank, they _had_ told the police about the monsters on the mountain. After all, it wasn’t like they could lock them _all_ up in the looney bin - not if seven people all told the same exact story. In the end the police had put it down to bear attacks, perhaps wolves, and decided that the terrified group of teenagers had simply been deeply disturbed by the nights events. Enough to get very, very confused.

Sam thought that the park rangers had treated them with a bit more understanding. Though they hadn’t said as much, she felt that they must have heard stories like theirs before. They weren’t the first people to visit Blackwood Pines, after all. Perhaps some of the rangers had even seen the Wendigos themselves.

“Not like it matters now,” she mumbled to herself, tugging her scarf closer around her neck.

No yoga pants this time, thank God - she had on a pair of thick, black thermal jogging trousers and fluffy socks underneath her high snow boots - as well as two warm thermal layers beneath her red-and-white snow coat. She wore the same hat from last year.

Her black scarf and matching gloves had been a present from Mike before she left.

_Frostbite’s the real killer,_ he’d joked, clearly masking his immense worry.

But it wasn’t, and Sam was mortified at the thought of anyone else coming up to this mountain, not knowing what was waiting for them. What if it was a family who’d bought this place? What if they had children?

She felt sick.

Sam inspected the new porch, assessing the expensive, polished oak door and feeling skeptical that it would manage to keep any cannibalistic Native American monsters out for very long. She peered though the panels of frosted glass that had been set either side of the door, unable to make out much besides the dark shadows of a not-yet lived in hallway.

Her phone rang.

“Jesus!” She practically gave herself whiplash, jerking away from the door in surprise. “Mike, I swear to god if it’s you…”

It wasn’t Mike.

“Sam?”

Chris. Oh god.

No, it was fine. She knew there was a chance someone would ring her today, like any other day - all she had to do was give them her prefabricated little white lie if they asked to meet up, or come over.

_Hi, friend, I’m just on a rock climbing trip at Stoney Point Park today, you know, the one right in LA?  It’s such a blast. What’s up?_

“Chris, hi! What’s up?”

Did she sound nervous? Oh God. She’d always been an atrocious liar.

“Oh, nothin’ much. You?”

“Me? I’m good. Did Mike tell you - I’m just on a rock climbing trip at Stoney-”

“Cut the bullshit, Sam.”

She stuttered. “Wh-what?”

“I know exactly where you are, and it ain’t Stoney Point.”

What? How? Did Mike tell him?

“I don’t know what you mean…” she tried weakly.

_“Sam.”_

Busted.

“Oh God, OK. Listen, Chris-”

“I cannot believe you right now. Sam, are you outta your mind? _Blackwood?_ Seriously?”

“I had to!”

_“Why?”_

“Because I needed to say goodbye to Josh!” She yelled, spinning on her heel in frustration. “Properly!”

Chris was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler. “I get it, Sam. But going on your own? Without telling anyone? What if something happened to you? Your Mom-”

“I know, Chris. Trust me.” She sat down on the porch step, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. She held the bouquet in her lap. “I’ve planned it all out. I’ll be long gone before sundown. All I wanted to do was come back to the lodge, lay some flowers…talk to him. Even if this isn’t exactly where he died, it _is_ where we used to be together - all of us, having good times and making great memories as well as bad ones. His grave back in California…” She closed her eyes. “He’s not there. It’s just a covered pit in the ground with an empty box inside.”

She stared up at the blue sky.

“I just wanted to take some time. You know. To acknowledge him.”

Chris was silent. “I would have come with you, y’know, “ he said eventually. “I…would’ve liked to.”

She winced. “I’m sorry, Chris. I wanted to tell you. I just…”

“You needed to do it on your own. Privacy, or whatever.”

She’d often thought that Chris may have picked up on the strange connection she and Josh had - the underlying warmth, the odd lingering glance, the occasional flirtatious joke that wasn’t as funny and insincere as it should have been.

Now, she was sure he had.

“Yeah. I thought that’d be harder to explain than just letting everyone believe I’d gone to Stoney Point for a day.”

“But you chose to tell _Mike?_ Over me? I am like, _so_ insulted right now.”

She snorted. “He told you, didn’t he.”

“To be fair, it was only down to my mad-relentless interrogation skills that he gave you up. He’s a pretty bad liar, too. Not like, You-Bad, but bad.”

“Gee, thanks.”

There was a comfortable pause between them, and Sam almost wished she had invited Chris. It had been kinda selfish not too, she supposed - he was Josh’s best friend.

_But could you bear to pour out your heart with Chris just stood there, trying to awkwardly comfort you?_

Maybe not.

“Will you promise not to tell anyone?” she begged him. “Not even Ashley, Chris.”

“Sam…”

“Please!”

She heard him sigh heavily, resigned. “You owe me one.”

She smiled. “Thanks, bruddah.”

“Yeah, yeah. You there now? At the lodge?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Sure am.”

“Does it look totally different?”

“It basically looks the same as before. Like, before the fire and the carnage.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, except one major difference…” She eyed the blue sign despondently. “The huge-ass _FOR SALE_ sign hanging around outside.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Hm, ’fraid not. You reckon you could find out who bought it? My high-speed internet game ain’t exactly on point up here.”

“Already on it.” She listened to the swift tapping of a keyboard, and patiently waited. She eyed the surrounding trees, always on guard by habit. It was bright and sunny - she knew Wendigos couldn’t stand the daylight, probably spent the day sleeping down in the mines…but that didn’t mean she was taking any chances.

“Ah, got’cha.”

She re-adjusted her phone against her ear. “Got something?”

“Yeah, whole article on it. Some rich airline mogul and his family bought the place a few months back. The Clemontes.”

She frowned.

A family. Just as she’d feared.

Chris continued, “Says here Julian Clemonte and his wife Andrea wanted a winter retreat for the family, and despite the gruesome history of Blackwood Mountain and the fates of it’s former residents, the family were not dissuaded from buying the newly renovated property from the Washington family within weeks of it being advertised.”

_Stupid rich people._

“Have they got kids?”

“Uh, let’s see…yeah. Two daughters, one in college, the other’s just thirteen.”

She winced, trying to find a silver lining. “Well…that’s something, I guess. Maybe the older daughter won’t wanna spend the holidays cooped up on a creepy mountain.” Her reasoning sounded hollow even to her.

_Two daughters. Is that a joke?_

Chris continued, “Either way, they plan on making use of the place. Says here that Julian Clemonte responded to comments by the press about the historical danger of the mountain, saying he didn’t believe in curses and was determined to enjoy his new investment as a scenic and private getaway.”

“Private enough that no one will hear them screaming!” Sam cried frustratedly. “What is it with rich people? The Washingtons had all those warnings about the mountain being sacred to the Natives, too, but they ignored them.”

“Rich folks love their winter getaways, I guess. Check this out - they’ve even announced that they’ll be spending the winter break at the lodge from the third of December up until Christmas. Yikes. It won’t be jolly old Saint Nick that crawls down their chimney on Christmas Eve, I’m telling you that.”

“Wait…the third?” Sam wondered why this was bothering her for all of two seconds before it clicked. “Oh my God! That’s tomorrow! They’re moving in tomorrow!”

“Christ on a bike.”

“Chris, this is bad. Really bad. They’ve got no idea - after what happened to us, when it was all over the news - everyone thought it was just bear attacks. They think the only thing to worry about here is _bears!”_

“I know, but what can we do? If the freakin’ _police_ didn’t believe us when we were all covered in claw marks and unanimously raving about the Wendgios, you really think this family is gonna listen to anyone who tries to tell them the same?”

Sam thought about the two Clemonte daughters. How many young people were going to have to _die_ on this bastard mountain - or worse - before it finally ended?

“I need to talk to them.”

“What? Sam, no-”

“If they bought the lodge from Mr and Mrs Washington, they’ll know about our story - about me. They’ll know I’m not just some looney making it up.”

“Sam. Listen. They might know you were really here, really attacked by bears or wolves, but they will never in a million years believe you about the Wendigos. I wouldn’t if I was them.”

She knew that. She also knew that the Stranger who had helped them last year had been mistaken for a crazed murder with a grudge - maybe she could play on that? The idea of a psycho still roaming the mountain might just be enough to put them off, more than some mythical man-eating beasts.

“The strange old guy that told us about the Wendigos - do you think he’s still here? You said the two of you got split up when one of them attacked you both.”

“Uh…I guess? We both ran and the Wendigo chased me, not him, so I guess it’s likely he got away. But I didn’t kill the damn thing - just managed escape with my ass intact. It might have gone back to finish him off.”

“Hm…”

“Seriously, what are you thinking? You’ll never convince them.”

“I’ll figure something out. But I have to at least try. I can’t stand by and watch what happened to Hannah and Beth - to Josh - happen again. Not without even trying.”

“What are you gonna do, break into the lodge and sleepover? Surprise them in the morning in your jammies?” He sounded just about ready to jump on a flight to Alberta any minute if she even suggested it.

_“Of course not._ There’s a B &B down in Blackwood town. I’ll stay there tonight. I was thinking about it anyway, to be honest. This day was always gonna be exhausting.”

She heard him sigh. It sounded like he was taking his glasses off, as if to rub his eyes. Sam felt immensely affectionate towards the big nerd.

“Ok. Sam, just be careful. So long as you’re on that mountain, day or night, you’re putting yourself at risk. The place is…it’s just not safe.”

“I know. I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Ring me regularly, ok? If I don’t hear from you every couple hours I’m on the next flight to Alberta with a shotgun and a death wish. And I’ll haunt your dead ass.”

“I promise I’ll stay in touch.”

She could almost _hear_ his worry through the speaker, but he still managed to crack a joke.

“Godspeed, pilgrim.”

He sounded vaguely melancholy as he said it, but she couldn’t comprehend why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you like this so far, there's much more to come!


	2. a rose by any other name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the positive response! Any and all comments are extremely motivating. Much love! <3

Sam picked a tree somewhat away from the lodge to lay her flowers. She didn’t want the Clemontes to remove them after all.

She’d brought some string with her, and spent a few minutes tying the bouquet to the bottom of the tree, hoping it would be enough to stop the flowers blowing away.

“The things I do for you,” she sighed, pulling her coat underneath her backside as she sat down in the snow.

They were a nice arrangement - a mix of colours and meanings. In Victorian England, a certain flower had a certain meaning, and giving a select type of flower could convey a message without words. Sam had learned this in the florist in Blackwood, and had ended up spending longer than she’d originally planned in choosing the right combination.

_What do I want to say to Josh Washington?_

“I’ll run you through what these flowers mean, shall I?” She pondered to him out loud, pointing as she went.

“This one is a white Carnation, which means remembrance,” she told him. “I guess that speaks for itself.”

She tapped the little blue flowers with white-and-yellow stars in the middle. “These are Forget-Me-Nots, which are kinda the same thing. They mean-”

She cleared her throat. “They mean ‘remember me forever.’ Plus, I always thought blue was your colour.”

His eyes had been blue.

“Then there’s the yellow Roses. They mean ‘friendship.’ I hope…I hope you still saw me as your friend, Josh. I hope you didn’t think bad of me, after we left the mountain.”

She could feel tears coming again, but shook them away. She’d nearly-cried too much today. She was supposed to be the tough one. Crying was Ashley’s game.

“And these are white Tulips.” She brushed her finger along one of their soft edges. “They mean forgiveness.”

She was quiet for a moment. “We’ve all forgiven you, Josh. Well, I can’t speak for Emily, but…the rest of us have. Jessica and Matt weren’t really involved in the prank anyway, so they found it easy. Mike says he regrets hitting you, too. Even if he thought you were an asshole at the time. And Ashley is totally mortified she stabbed you.” She laughed softly under her breath. “I mean, everyone’s still really pissed, that you did it to us in the first place. Me as well. It was really _sick_ , Josh.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “But what I’m saying is…we understand. You weren’t well and…and we probably deserved it.”

Sam looked at the next set of flowers. They had come in a variety of colour combinations, but she had chosen the ones that were purple in the middle and bled out to a rich blue. The spot of yellow pollen at their centre almost made them look like little faces.

“These are the last ones - Pansies.” Somehow her chest felt light and heavy at the same time. “They mean…”

Why couldn’t she say it?

“They mean…”

_They mean thoughts of love._

She closed her eyes. “They mean love.”

And she had loved him, hadn’t she? She loved all her friends.

 _But you loved me differently,_ a voice whispered, and it sounded just like him. _You were never sure how, exactly. But it was different._

“Josh… _I miss you,_ ” she told the flowers, pulling off her hat so she had something to hold. “I was in shock, when they finally saved us that night. It wasn’t until we were flying away in the helicopter that I asked Mike - asked him if it had been quick. He said he hadn’t seen you die, just heard you being carried away.” She shook her head, trying to imagine what she would have done if she’d been in Mike’s position - would she have tried to save Josh, even if it meant she’d probably die in the process?

_I’d like to think so._

“I was so upset. I begged them to turn around - to go back and get you, but…but everyone kept telling me there was nothing to be done, there was no way you could still be alive.” She shuddered, rubbing her arms. “It played on my mind for weeks, months…wondering if we’d left you down there to starve, surrounded by monsters. And in your condition…”

She remembered the last time she had seen him alive. She and Mike had found him in the mines, out of his mind, as vulnerable as a child. It had killed her to see him like that. Even in his worst moments, when she’d come over to his house and find him in a heap on the floor, sobbing until his throat was raw - he’d still made _sense._

That night his mind had finally, fully cracked - all his fears and anxiety and grief flooding out, unchecked.

 _Full mental jacket,_ Mike had said.

“I left you and Mike to find your own way back out the mines. I should have stayed, I should have-”

She couldn’t help it. The tears began to spill.

She remembered his lost, scared face.

“I’m so sorry, Josh. I - I just came because…I wanted to say goodbye!”

She curled in on herself, shaking with grief, sobs wracking her frame. Her breath came in jerky gasps. She pressed her face into her hat, inconsolable.

A twig snapped.

The sobs froze in her throat.

Sam slowly opened her eyes, every muscle in her body tense, still as stone. The noise had come from behind her, near the lodge. She stared into the material of her hat, mind whirring like well-oiled cogs.

 _It might just be a deer,_ she frantically tried to reason with herself, _or a squirrel._

The birds were not singing.

_Did squirrels have such a heavy tread?_

If it had been anywhere else, Sam would have simply turned to see what it was, but this was _Blackwood Pines._ In her mind’s eye she imagined a Wendigo crouched in the snow behind her, lured by her cries, searching for any sign of movement.

For prey.

_It’s early afternoon. They’re completely nocturnal. It can’t be a Wendigo._

All the reasoning in the world wouldn’t ease her sudden fear. It was another two minutes of silence before she couldn’t bear it any longer - the feeling of being watched from behind.

She slowly turned her head, terrified at what she might see…

But there was nothing.

The small, snow-coated glade that suited as the lodge’s front yard was empty, and it was light enough to see a little ways into the surrounding trees - she was on her own.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, sagging in relief.

She felt like laughing, ludicrously enough, so she did - giggling hysterically into her hat. “I’m going crazy.”

She put her hat on and slung her bag over her shoulders, glancing around anxiously.

Then she looked back at the flowers.

It had been a long way to travel to do something so small, but it had been worth it.

“Goodbye, Josh,” she whispered to the flowers, and then turned on her heel and made her way back down the trail.

She was not going to spend any longer in this place than necessary.

 

…

 

Sam was feeling more optimistic with every step. She had done what she came here to do, and honestly felt better for it. She really did feel closer to Josh here than she did at his grave in California.

_I can leave now without feeling so guilty._

By the time she’d reached the cable car station, the sun had sunk very slightly and clouds had begun to roll in, thick and white. It left the mountain bathed in a grey, overcast light - darker than before.

Sam fumbled in her pocket. “Now, where…”

Huh.

She checked the other one.

Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Oh, no.”

Where was the cable car key? She’d put it in her coat pocket-

_Shallow pockets, mind you._

“Damnit!” she cried frustratedly, shoving her hands through her hair. “It must have fallen out when I was sitting down. On the porch, or at the tree…”

She inhaled, trying to find her ‘centre’. Jess said it helped with nerves.

There was no hope for it. She would just have to go back.

Sam checked her phone: _3:42pm._ She still had time. It wasn’t too long of a walk - going to the lodge and back would still be quicker than trying to walk all the way back down the mountain.

_Looking for a tiny key in all this snow…perfectly doable._

“I cannot believe this right now,” she chided herself, tugging her hat over her ears. “Why am I such a grade-A idiot?”

She kept talking to herself as she walked back the way she’d come, aware she was doing so to fill the silence.

Because it was too quiet.

Sam slowed, dragging her feet through the snow. She stopped.

_The birds still aren’t singing._

She stood in the middle of the wide trail, looking around for any odd shapes or signs of movement. There was nothing notably wrong - nothing that she could physically see, and yet…

_I feel like I’m being watched._

It was that deep-rooted feeling that couldn’t be shaken off, a tickle down the back of your neck - a natural instinct, one of the few humanity still possessed.

She hadn’t felt this way earlier on the way up to the lodge, so she knew it wasn’t simply being on the mountain that was making her feel this way.

 _It’s got to be the Stranger,_ she decided. _He’s probably still on this mountain…didn’t Mike say he lived in the Sanatorium? That he caged Wendigos there?_

Sam couldn’t think of a worse place to live - in the same building as all that man-eating nightmare fuel.

“Hey!” She called out anxiously, praying that Wendigos hadn’t developed a sudden tolerance for daylight recently. “I know you’re watching me! Why don’t you just show yourself?”

She waited for a reply but the forest was silent, as if it were holding it’s breath. “My name’s Sam? I was here last year… you told us about the Wendigos, and helped Chris try to get our friend Josh back!”

_But he’d already been taken._

“So…could you do me, like, a massive solid and just show yourself already? You’re creeping me the hell out!”

There was no answer.

Now she was thoroughly weirded out.

“Fine, you know what?” She determinedly ploughed forwards through the snow, ignoring her frazzled nerves. “See if I care, you creeper! Give me the silent _Bear Grylls_ treatment if you want - I’m going back to find that stupid key, even if it takes me a damn hour!”

_You don’t have an hour._

The last bus was at 5:15pm. It must have been near enough 4:00pm already. If she spent too long looking…

_No. It’s got to be on the porch, or by the tree. It’ll be there._

“You here me, creep-a-ziod? I’m going to find that key, hop on that cable car and be outta here within the-”

A scream. Terrible and bloodcurdling, ringing through the trees like an omen of death.

Sam froze, heart dropping through her stomach.

She knew that scream.

_Wendigo._

_No,_ she thought hysterically to herself, fear streaming through her blood so potently she shook with it. _No, it’s not possible, they don’t come out in the day, they don’t, they can’t-_

Another scream, running right through her, chilling her to the bone.

So close her ears ached.

Sam turned and ran.

It was the exact opposite of what one should do in this situation, but she’d been shouting her head off like a crazy person for all the forest to hear - the thing must have already known exactly where she was.

Her mind was blank with terror.

She hadn’t seen anything. Couldn’t hear it chasing her. If she could just get a headstart, find somewhere to hide -

Another horrible screech, further behind - perhaps she was losing it?

She ran past the cable car station. It was of no use to her now.

Her backpack thumped painfully against her spine, slowing her down, but she didn't dare take the time to wriggle out of it. There was surely no time to get out the shotgun or flares.

She gasped for breath.

_Oh God. This can’t be happening. Not again. For fuck’s sake, not again!_

Memories of last year flashed through her mind like a sadistic showreel. The echoing mines - the hollow Sanatorium - the lodge taken over by Wendigos, moving like spiders; jerky and fast, Hannah hovering over her ready to kill, _to rip her apart,_ her gruesome, monstrous mouth breathing down Sam’s neck, foggy eyes looking right through her-

_I can’t die like this!_

She saw the ledge two seconds too late. She tried to stop, skidded, fell on her side-

Sam scrambled for purchase as she slid over the edge, but her fingers found nothing-

_Chris is going to be so angry._

With a yelp of terror, she fell.

 

…

 

_Josh was in his bedroom. The one in the Washington’s main house, in California._

_It was just as it had always been; covered in movie posters from wall to wall, his cluttered desk full of notebooks and memorabilia - pictures of friends. His bed was draped in her favourite dark comforter - the one she always stole and wrapped around herself when they watched movies together. Josh was sat on it, his back turned to her, looking at something in his hands._

_His window let in warm, yellow light; it bathed him in it. She could see the dust motes floating around his hair._

_She wondered where Hannah and Beth were._

_“Josh?”_

_He turned his head fractionally, so she could barely catch the profile of his face, then looked back down._

_“She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?” he murmured._

_She approached him, trying to see what he was looking at._

_“…a beautiful bathing bird.”_

_She came to stand beside him, but still he did not look at her. He only had eyes for the phone is his hands - he was watching a video._

_It showed a young, blonde woman in a large bathtub, headphones in, obliviously nodding to some unheard song._

_It was Sam._

_And it frightened her._

_Why did it frightened her?_

_“Josh…”_

_He curled in on himself, dropping the phone face-down. He dug his hands into his hair, shaking._

_“No…”_

_The warm light disappeared. The room was swallowed by shadows._

_“No, no…”_

_“Josh - Josh, what’s happening? What’s wrong?”_

_She touched his shoulder and he jerked away, rushing to stand. “No, go away! Go away!” He kept his back to her. “Leave me alone…”_

_The room was expanding, growing cavernous and damp, echoing like ghosts._

_“You - you can’t tell me what to do! You can’t tell me what to do anymore!” He was wailing inconsolably, stumbling around the cave like a drunk, shaking his head._

_“Josh,” she begged him, terrified, “Josh, look at me!”_

_She approached him again, moved to grab his shoulder-_

_He jerked around, and his eyes were milky, his mouth full of razor teeth._

_She tried to pull away but he lunged forwards, closing his jaws around her throat and she screamed and screamed-_

Sam jerked awake, gasping like a beached fish.

She coughed frantically, rolling onto her stomach and drawing in huge, strangled breaths, feeling as if she hadn’t drawn air in years. Her head throbbed in terrible pain.

_What…the hell…_

She blinked frantically for a moment before realising she had not lost her vision - it was simply dark.

_Dark? But it was only mid-afternoon…_

She jerked upright, staring in horror at the icy ledge towering a good fifteen feet above her, and the black night sky above that. The moon was near full, and it seemed to be leering at her.

She had fallen. She had been running from the Wendigo and fallen-

“No. Jesus. Oh, no.” She struggled to stand, every muscle aching. Her right knee throbbed worryingly, but her head felt worse. She pulled off a glove and ran her fingers gingerly through the hair at the base of her skull. Sure enough, she pulled them away wet with what she knew to be blood, although it looked positively black in the moonlight.

Who knew where her hat was.

“Fucking Christ. Ok, Sam, _Ok._ Just…figure this out for a sec.”

She searched her jeans pocket and miraculously found her phone, although it appeared to have suffered a large crack down the middle of the screen.

“Small mercies…” she mumbled to herself, checking the time.

6:51pm.

“Fuck!” she hissed with volume, and immediately slapped a hand over her mouth, looking around wildly.

This was exactly what she had planned so meticulously to avoid, the _one thing_ that had been an absolute condition of coming back to Blackwood Pines; be nowhere near the place _at night._

It was hard to see in the dark, but she used her cellphone’s flashlight to search the area and was relieved to find her backpack had not gotten lost or suffered too badly in the fall - which was lucky, considering she was still on a slight slope, surrounded by closely-knit trees.

“I’m definitely off the beaten path,” Sam groaned, shouldering her heavy pack with a wince, but not before extracting Mike’s shotgun.

She checked it was loaded, and then took a flash-picture of herself on her phone in order to see the extent of the damage.

She’d earned a nasty slice on the eyebrow, which was bleeding sluggishly, and the left side of her jaw looked suspiciously bruised, but otherwise her face had not been too badly injured. Her right leg was painful, but it appeared to only be badly bruised, too - not broken as she’d feared. She wasn’t sure how it’d hold up in a run-for-your-life scenario, but hopefully she wouldn’t have to put it to the test.

Sam adjusted her grip on the shotgun, fearing having to use it, and began taking small steps down toward more even ground. She exhaled shakily.

“Time to do this shit all over again.”

The forest was dark here - the crowded trees meant moonlight leaked through in odd patches, and she was forced to use her phone to guide her way.

Battery was at 41%.

That was fine for now, but if she didn’t get off this hellhole soon she could be facing a walk through the dark unaided, with no chance to call for help. There was no wifi here and her signal was sketchy at best - being so close to the lodge had helped when Chris had called her - but now her connection was dying and reviving every two minutes.

Why didn’t she think to note down the Blackwood Rangers’ number before she came up here?

_Because you were so cock-sure you’d be long gone by now. Amateur move, Samanthaaa! I thought there were some brains to match all that brawn…_

_Shut up, Josh._

Perhaps it hadn’t mattered after all, whether she came here day _or_ night. That’s what Chris had said, wasn’t it? That this place was unsafe either way.

She knew what she’d heard. It had been a Wendigo that had chased her earlier, in broad daylight.

_But_ _did_ _it chase me?_

She had heard it’s call, but had seen nothing.

It must have been no more than twenty - perhaps thirty feet away from her when she’d first heard it’s awful cry - the noise was so _loud_ , it vibrated through her. Surely it could have easily caught up to her when she ran? She’d seen how quickly those things could move.

_None of this makes sense. Wendigos that hunt in the day and let their prey escape? It goes against everything I knew about them._

And to be fair, Sam was technically a leading expert. Beside her friends and the Stranger, it seemed no one else had so much as heard of the creatures, let alone believed in them.

_I could have, like…a PHD in the jerks. Wendigos 101._

It took her the best part of twenty minutes before she found a narrow path - more of a trail really - and decided to stick to it. It appeared to be following a gentle decline, so she knew it would at least lead her to the bottom of the mountain, if not directly to the bus stop. She could follow the road from there.

This stretch of the mountainside was unknown to her - they had always used the cable car to get to the lodge before.

“Just follow the yellow brick road and cross your fingers,” she muttered darkly to herself, flexing her cold fingers around the barrel of the shotgun.

She followed the trail obediently until she spotted a large, dark mass moving further down the path, directly in her way.

For a second she forgot how to breathe, but quickly realised what she was looking at.

“Deer,” she sighed in relief.

Not that deer couldn’t be dangerous, of course, but she’d rather take her chances with the large, antlered bucks than with some of the more carnivores creatures residing in Blackwood Pines.

The deer snorted and pawed at the ground as she approached, watching her keenly. Sam was careful to not get too close, but she might be forced to if they weren’t going to budge. They were a large group of twenty or more, blocking the trail completely. The surrounding trees were dark and full of shadows, and Sam did not fancy venturing inside just to get around these guys.

“C’mon, fellas…a girl’s got places to be, y’know.”

They didn’t appear to see her as a threat, but neither did they look inclined to be moved anytime soon. Sam was something of an animal lover and an animal-rights activist, at that - she didn’t want to scare or harm the deer to make them move, not least of all because they might just trample her in revenge. They were clearly stood huddled together for warmth, having chosen this as their resting spot.

“Guys, seriously? I need to get the hell outta dodge, and you’re not helping.”

Sam was just mentally preparing herself for the long walk round in the darkness, when one of the bucks raised his huge head, antlers swinging as he glared alertly into the trees to Sam’s left. Then another buck turned to look. And another. Soon they were all staring into the darkness, as if listening for something. On edge.

Then they unanimously turned and ran in the opposite direction.

Sam rapidly back-peddled, letting them race past, and drew her shotgun. She aimed it into the treeline.

She was still aiming, breathless, after the thunder of the deer’s hooves had faded into the distance.

Staring down the sight of the gun, she tried to hold as still as possible. Looking for _anything-_

A moving shadow in the trees.

Sam fired.

The gunshot was tremendously loud, jarring her shoulder painfully, but she had missed. The shadow was moving towards her, she had to try again or she’d end up _dead, c’mon Sam for fuck’s-_

“Don’t shoot!”

She froze, finger wavering on the trigger.

Sam’s heart was in her throat, and it was hard to let go of her sense of danger long enough to process that _Wendigos didn't speak English._

“He-hello?”

_No wait, crap! They can imitate their prey, remember?_

She was just about ready to let off another shot when the shadow revealed itself in the moonlight as a real-life, human-shaped person, hands held up in submission.

She nearly dropped the gun in relief.

It was the Stranger.

She recognised his style of clothing from last year - the dark welding goggles and long, thick winter coat. A grey hat and a black-and-white bandana covering his face and neck. A large, odd-looking gun hung from his waist. It appeared to have been crudely constructed out of some sort of gas canister and part of a blowtorch - perhaps a smaller version of the huge flamethrower she remembered him carrying about on his back. He held a large machete in one of his raised hands.

“It’s you,” she exclaimed excitedly, feeling instantly safer with him present. The guy literally wrote a book about fighting Wendigos - if anyone could help her get back to the road unharmed, it was him. “I don’t know if you remember me - my name is Sam? I was here last year with-”

“I know who you are,” he interrupted her quietly.

There was an odd pause. His voice was muffled beneath the bandana, but it struck a chord with her she couldn’t quite place.

He seemed fidgety, as if he wanted to leave.

Sam continued, “Well, good. Look, I won’t go into why I’m here _again_ \- I just need to leave. Again.” She felt somewhat stupid. “You helped us last time, I was hoping…could you help me get to the bottom of the mountain-”

“Keep following this path - it runs parallel to the cable car track. I’ll stay up here, make sure nothing follows you.”

This seemed entirely sketchy. Did his voice always sound like that?

“You mean, you won’t come with me?”

He was looking everywhere but at her. She could see his fists were tightly clenched. “I…can’t. Take my advice and just leave already, Sammy. Before you get hurt.”

She nodded tartly, slightly put out by his lack of cooperation. “Fine. Don’t worry, pal, I’m totally outta…here…”

The words died in her throat.

She stared at him. Her mind seemed to slow on a single train of thought, perplexed.

“What did you just call me?” She asked him quietly.

He appeared to be confused for a moment - though she could only try and interpret his body language - but then he definitely stiffened.

“Nothing. _Sam,_ whatever your name is. You need to go.”

He turned his back and began to walk away up the trail.

Only Josh ever called her _Sammy._

_He sounds like him, too. That’s what was bothering me before. He has his voice._

Was her mind tricking her again? Was she conjuring up Josh’s voice in her head, like she’d been doing for the last year? Had she finally cracked, hearing it in other people, too?

_No._

She looked at him as he walked away - the long, loping gait of his walk, the casual swing in his arms…those broad shoulders.

_No. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy!_

“W-wait!” she cried desperately, unable to shake her certainly that something miraculous was happening. She began to chase after him. She saw his pace quicken, trying to escape her. “Wait!”

“Go _away,_ already!” He wouldn’t look at her.

_Just like in my dream. He wouldn’t show me his face-_

“No, wait-!”

She brushed his shoulder and he jerked away, turning on her. He held out his machete threateningly, forcing her to take a step back. “I said _leave._ You wanna die?”

She’d never felt so alive. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to sit right here and wait for the Wendigos to come get me. Unless…” She swallowed. “Unless you take off those goggles and bandana. Right now.”

He stared at her - eyes concealed by the dark glass - and for a long moment did nothing.

Then he said heavily, forcibly, “No.”

He turned to leave.

Sam dropped her gun. She lunged.

She tried to grab the bandana but it was as though he’d been expecting it - he moved with impressive deftness and grabbed her arm, yanking it away from his face - she grabbled at the goggles with her other hand, accidentally scratching the skin around his temple. He hissed, rearing back, forced to drop the machete, capturing both her arms and holding them at bay in a vice-like grip.

He was _strong._

Sam resorted to kicking at his shins, landing a particularly nasty blow to the left and he hissed in pain - she used the distraction and twisted in his grip, kicking the same leg out from under him.

_“Oof!”_

They landed heavily, and Sam wasted no time in wriggling her way on top of him, furiously trying to pull her arms free.

“Just - _quit it!”_ he roared angrily, boots scuffing up the snow as he tried to throw her off him.

“Take them off!” She yelled back, pressing her knee into his sternum as hard as she could. She could practically hear him grating his teeth in pain.

 _In an alternate universe, this could have been a very different type of wrestling,_ she thought hysterically to herself.

“You’re going to draw every Wendigo within a mile of here - get _off_ me!” He hissed furiously. He struggled like a wild animal trapped in a corner, and somewhere deep within herself she felt a dam break.

“Just - _just stop it, Josh!”_ She cried, tears blurring her vision.

He froze beneath her.

“Please, _stop…_ ” She bent her head, shaking, holding onto his raised forearms as if to keep herself upright. She felt boneless. He could throw her off at any moment, easily, but he didn’t. “Please,” she gasped, “Please don’t make me beg! Tell me it’s really you!”

Sam cried quietly, tears falling onto his thick coat, shaking.

Could she be wrong? But how? It was his voice, his body…

_It was him._

Slowly, he pulled his arms out of her death-grip. She let him. It felt as if all her energy had been consumed by this night.

Sam kept her head hung low, staring at his dark coat through swimming eyes.

_How could I bear it, if it wasn’t him?_

She heard the soft whisper of fabric, the quiet rattling of glass and rubber.

There was a long pause, and then the man beneath her pushed himself up to sitting. She was forced to sit back in his lap - to look.

The goggles and bandana were gone.

Josh Washington was staring back at her.

“I never could resist you,” he told her sheepishly, shrugging.

Sam collapsed against him, hugging him so fiercely it must have hurt, but he didn’t complain.

She wailed and wailed, crying into his neck unapologetically, shuddering with sobs that for once came from something dangerously close to joy instead of grief.

She didn’t understand how this had happened.

And right then she really, _really_ didn’t care.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give a kudos and comment if you're enjoying!


	3. sticks and stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the love, guys! Hope you enjoy!

“How are you alive?”

It was the first coherent thought she had, once she’d stopped crying.

Josh avoided her gaze, gently moving her off him. He was as pale as she’d ever seen him, and his hair had grown a little longer, more unruly, but his eyes were clear - free of demons.

He was _present._

“Walter found me. In the mines. He saved me.”

She sat in the snow, dazed. “Walter? You mean…the crazy old Wendigo hunter?” It was odd to think the guy had a real name.

Josh stood up, refastening the machete to his belt, securing his makeshift flamethrower gun on the other hip. “He told me how him and Chris had gone back to the shed to find me, but I’d already been taken. After they got split up, he came to search the mines, in case I was still alive.”

“But how… _how_ were you still alive?”

He smirked dryly, and without humour. “Family bonds must run deep, or somethin’. Hannah decided not to eat me.”

He held out his hand and she tentatively accepted. He pulled her to her feet with surprising strength - she almost stumbled into him.

They looked at each other, reacquainting themselves with the gentle slopes and sharp angles of the other’s face. Sam might be misinterpreting, but Josh’s eyes seemed very dilated, drinking her in with fervour. 

After a moment he looked away, rubbing the back of his head. He wore fingerless gloves, she noticed.

“I’ll take you back down the mountain,” he announced suddenly, pulling his hat back on. He hung his goggles around his neck and stuffed the bandana in his coat pocket.

“You didn’t want to escort me earlier,” she pointed out hotly.

“Because I didn’t want you to recognise me. Lot of good that did.”

She eyed his get-up warily. “Your clothes…are they the Stranger’s? I mean - _Walter’s?_ Did he die?”

“No, he leant them to me. I’m…kinda living with the guy.”

“What? In the-”

“In the Sanatorium, yeah. Major irony, right? I’m finally right where I belong.” He was only half-joking.

“Except your ward buddies are man-eating _monsters,_ ” she hissed disbelievingly.

_The last time I saw Josh, he was off his rocker. How is he functioning so well, after a  whole year of living in this devil’s pit? Surely anyone’s mental health would only have deteriorated…_

He pretended not to have heard her. Instead he began walking down the trail. “There’s no point going into all of this, Sam. I’ll take you back to the road.”

She felt herself growing angry. Her immense confusion wasn’t helping. “And then what?”

He stopped. “Then nothing. You can forgot about me. Get on with your life.”

“And just leave you here? Are you insane?” She advanced on him, poking him in the chest. His face was stoney. “Joshua Washington, I _just_ found you again. Do you really imagine I’m just going to go home and pretend you’re still dead? That I could lie to _everyone-_ ”

“This is where I belong,” he hissed frustratedly, as if _she_ were the insensible one. “Don’t you get it? There’s nothing left for me off this mountain. I’m not supposed to have a normal life, I never was-”

“How can you say that? Our friends-”

“Because they’d _care,_ right?” he snarled, suddenly angry. He crowded her space, blue eyes burning. “Because everyone would totally want to hear _that_ news - the schizo who scarred them for life is alive! Woohoo!” He gestured wildly, bitter sarcasm staining every syllable. “And I appreciate it, you know - that you’re here, trying to convince yourself you’re _happy_ I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere-”

“I went to your funeral!” she shouted, blood boiling beneath her skin, “I cried over you for days, weeks-!”

“Of _course_ you did,” he sneered, avoiding her gaze again, “I’m sure it was all very sad, saying goodbye to the psycho who terrified you, _tortured_ you - ‘cause that makes total sense!”

“ _What_ are you talking about!” she screamed, voice shrill and thick with restrained tears. “How dare you! Of course I cried! I sobbed into my pillow every night for all of us, for myself - but always for _you!”_ She jabbed her finger at him, feeling hysterical. Her cheeks were wet. “All those years I’d spent with Hannah - with you and Beth - we were best friends! Even when the others left after a party or a movie night, I’d always stay, because that’s how it was. Sam and the Washingtons!” She wiped her eyes furiously. “You really think one stupid, awful prank was going to undo all of that? That just one night was going to make five years completely redundant?”

Josh appeared to have lost his zeal. Now his anger seemed to have deflated, looking at her with a mix of surprise and concern. His fingers twitched, as though he wanted to touch her. “Sam…”

“After the twins died, I needed you just as much as you needed me. I dreaded anything bad ever happening to you…and then you-” She chocked on the words. “And then you were dead!”

Sam burst into tears, and within an instant was enveloped in strong, warm arms. She clung to him. She had to make him see.

“Josh…I missed you s-so much! I would have done _anything_ to see you again!”

She could feel the way his arms constricted around her tighter, as if he were afraid she was about to disappear like mist. He exhaled shakily into her hair, pressing his lips to the crown of her head.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m here now, Sammy.”

 _Sammy._ That’s what he always called her.

_He’s really alive._

“I’m so sick of crying,” she managed to mumble eventually, pulling away, and Josh chuckled.

“I did always see you as a ‘tears-are-for-losers’ type, I’ll admit.”

She grinned wetly, enjoying this familiar routine.

“Josh…I meant it. I’m not leaving without you.”

His smile dropped. “Sam…”

“Don’t force me to leave,” she begged him, trying to take the reasonable approach. “If you do, I’ll only tell everyone you’re alive anyway, and your Mom and Dad and Chris will all come back here and abduct you kicking and screaming, whether you like it or not.”

She knew it was the mention of Chris, not his parents, that made his eyebrow twitch and his lips thin.

“So please,” she appealed to him, “If you won’t come with me, then…then let me stay.”

He shot her a look of complete befuddlement. “What?”

 _I can’t make him come with me, not while he still believes he’s got no one that wants him. For whatever reason, he thinks this place is where he belongs. He still hates himself_. _And part of him wants to rot away here like his sisters did._

_But if I just had enough time…_

“Let me stay here with you - just until the end of the week. A few days. I promise that if you still don’t want to come with me by then, I’ll leave.” Inside her coat pocket, she crossed her fingers. “…And I swear not to tell anyone back home about you. If you don’t want me to.”

He seemed torn between wanting to protest and wanting to accept - her presence was clearly having an effect on him.

_Had he even once spoken to another person this whole year, besides the old hunter guy? Can he even remember what it feels like to be touched with affection?_

Evidently, the temptation of her company won out.

“Fine,” he sighed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying, “but only for a few days! And you won’t go outside at night. And you’ll stay where I can see you.”

“Yes, _Dad.”_

She was delighted to see him blush. “I just don’t want you getting hurt,” he admitted quietly.

Her heart warmed. She hooked her arm through his.

He looked down at it, as if perplexed by the sudden contact, but she saw the corners of his mouth curl upwards. They began to walk back up the trail.

“We…could stay at the lodge tonight,” he suggested, looking away. “I know a way in. Sometimes I kip there if I’m too far from the Sanatorium.”

“You are aware that the new owners are moving in tomorrow, right? They might not appreciate a breaking-and-entering fiasco on their first day.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Guess we’ll have to sneak out early, then.”

“Ooh, like naughty kids!”

He snorted, restraining a smile. Clearly he was still holding back a little, but she supposed she understood. Last time they’d seen each other, he’d spent the night terrorising her. Then he’d spent another year in near-solitude pretending to be dead on a cursed mountain. Just because she’d forgiven him didn’t mean either of them could forget.

There was was no sound but the crunching of snow beneath their boots. She wanted to fill the silence. She had so many questions.

“So…” she prodded teasingly. “What d’you do for kicks up here?”

He grinned crookedly at her, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I can’t kill the monsters in my head,” he told her matter-of-factly, “So I kill the monsters on this mountain, instead.”

 

…

 

The idea of Josh learning to kill Wendigos under the crazy old guy’s tutorage shouldn’t have come as much of a shock - the evidence was strapped to his belt, after all - but somehow it did. 

She eyed the large gun swinging from his waist.

Josh had proven himself dangerous enough with nothing but a clown mask and a syringe - she felt distinctly nervous at the thought of what he could do with a frickin’ _flamethrower._

_But he’s definitely less unbalanced than last year. What changed?_

She figured that was a question for another time. Time which she now had.

“Quit staring at me, crazy,” he told her, eyes fixed ahead.

Sam just wanted to enjoy Josh Washington’s aliveness right now.

“Sorry, but the news that you’re now a _Wendigo-hunter_ is still kinda messing with my brain.”

She’d always, _always_ seen Josh as a Lover, not a Fighter. He’d never been overly interested in violent video games or close-contact sports, although he’d loved horror movies. She wondered if that had changed.

“I know it’s sounds kinda crazy…and messed up. But I feel like maybe this is what I was meant to do. Only job a looney like me can do properly, right? And if I die in the process, well…”

_You wouldn’t mind, would you?_

She couldn’t bear to voice the thought out loud. Regardless if Josh Washington was no longer seeing visions or being terrorised by voices only he could hear, he was clearly still unwell.

As if reading her mind, he told her, “Walter goes into Blackwood sometimes for food and things. I couldn’t go or people might recognise me.” He coughs awkwardly. “He…he gets one of my medications for me. I should be on, like, six different ones, but it’s better than nothing. The Buspirone helps keep my mood level, eases some of the anxiety…helps me sleep. I don’t know if he has a prescription or what. I don’t ask. But he keeps getting it for me.”

Sam’s concern at Walter’s shady behaviour was pretty much overrun by a certain thankfulness. Grouchy and weird as she remembered him being, he was evidently looking out for Josh in his own way. If they’d spent a year in each other’s company she supposed they must have established some sort of relationship.

“And does it help…enough?” She dared.

He frowned. “Not really. But like I said. It helps.”

They were nearing the cable car station. She saw it looming out of the darkness.

“Josh,” she tells him urgently, remembering her wild chase through here only hours before, “Listen, have you noticed something different about the Wendigos? Like, from how they were last year?

He paused, frowning. “What d’you mean?”

She looked around anxiously. She felt safer with Josh here, but not by much. “Earlier today, I was on this same trail, and…I heard a Wendigo. Josh, it was _daylight._ And I ran, I know it was stupid, but it didn’t seem to chase me-”

“You _were_ stupid,” he told her. “But lucky for you it wasn’t a Wendigo you heard.”

She scoffed. “I think I’d remember what those things sound like, thank you,” she told him flatly. “Kinda hard to forget!”

He fumbled with something hidden in the lining of his coat, and pulled out what appeared to be a long, knotted piece of bone, about the same length of her hand from wrist to fingertip. It looked mostly hollow.

“You know what this is?”

She looked at him blankly. “Am I supposed to?”

He wiggled it in her face. “This, Samantha, is the throat vertebrae of a Wendgio. Got it from a dead one in the Sanatorium.”

Sam jerked away from it, grossed out. “What the hell! Why do you have that?”

“I’m saying that what you heard earlier wasn’t a real Wendigo - it was this. Inside are lots of petrified vocal chords fused to the bone. Wendigo anatomy is weird, I’m telling ya.”

She eyed it warily. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to communicate here, man.”

Slowly, Josh raised the fragment of bone to his lips, and blew.

Sam jumped out of her skin.

The piercing, shrill scream of the Wendigo reverted down her spine, ringing painfully in her ears.

“Stop it, stop it!” She cried, knocking his hand away from his snickering mouth. “What the hell are you doing! You might have just sent out an invitation to dinner!”

“If a Wendigo hears a call from it’s own kind, it’ll normally deliberately stay away. They tend to try and keep out of each other’s territory.” He raised an eyebrow at her furious expression. “Let’s just say they’re not big team players.”

Sam squinted at him. “It was _you._ You used that - that _thing_ earlier today, out in the woods! You scared the hell outta me, Josh!”

“That was the idea,” he told her seriously, blue eyes scanning her face, lingering on her cut eyebrow, her swollen jaw. “I saw you first at the lodge, sat by a tree. I couldn’t believe it was you, to start with. Then when you left I followed you. When it seemed like you were gonna go all the way back to find that key, I knew you might waste ages looking for it. I had to do something to make sure you got the hell outta dodge.”

Again, his hands twitched, as if he wanted to touch her bruised face. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Sam. I just…I didn’t want you anywhere near this mountain at night. More fool me, right?”

He’d seen her at the lodge…

_The twig that snapped, that scared me half to death; it was him!_

“I knew I was being watched,” she breathed irritably. “Does that mean…you heard everything I said? At the tree?” Her heart raced at the thought.

_And these are Pansies…they mean love._

He scanned her face, dark brows furrowed. “I couldn’t make out what you were saying, but I saw the flowers. And you began to cry. I figured they were for Hannah and Beth. For a minute I forgot, I just wanted to-” he shook his head, “I just wanted to…go to you. I’m a sucker for crying girls, y’know? And I stepped on a twig and nearly got caught.” He tried to laugh it off, face as red as an apple. “Guess my stalker game is so not on point right now.”

She grabbed his hand. His eyes snapped to hers. “Josh…the flowers were for you.”

He was looking at her with a dark intensity she didn’t recognise. His hand squeezed hers.

Then a scream.

Josh immediately pulled her close, holding her against him protectively.

Wendigo.

A real one this time.

Sam was so ready to be indoors. “…We need to get out of here.”

“Agreed. It doesn’t sound close, and we’re not far from the lodge.” He drew his strange gun and looked down at her. “Stay close to me,” he breathed, apparently determined to adopt the role of protector.

“No need to ask,” she mumbled, clinging to his coat as they made their way up the trail.

He handed her his machete, although she remained doubtful it would prove much use against the Native creatures roaming these woods.

When they reached the little snow-covered glade at the lodge, Sam nearly ran the rest of the way in her haste, surpassing Josh.

“How do we get in?” she turned to him, gesturing at the locked door.

“Sam, c’mon. I thought you were more creative than that. The backdoor is way more fun…”

“Ew, seriously?”

He laughed, leading her round the side of the lodge.

_It almost feels like it used to. Jokes and laughter._

Josh gestured to a narrow window set near the ground.

“Vwa-lah!”

“The basement,” she nodded. “But of course.”

She watched him as he slowly jimmied the thing open, like he’d done it a hundred times. He probably had.

“How did you even figure that vertebrae-thing would work in the first place?” she asked him curiously.

He smirked. “You never seen Jurassic Park? When Dr Grant makes a replica of a velociraptor larynx and uses it to communicate with them? Turns out the idea’s real upstanding. Walter was very impressed with me.”

“Jurassic Park. Obviously.”

Trust Josh to apply movie references to real life and have it actually work.

Getting through the little window proved exerting - her knee still hurt, and she practically fell inside. Josh laughed at her, sliding through easily despite his larger frame and landing on his feet.

“Shut up, Josh.”

_How often have I said that to myself, when I imagined his voice? Now it’s for real._

She watched him go about lighting two gas lights near a makeshift-bed, made up of rugs and coats and one, greying pillow.

_We’re going back to California_ _together_ _, Josh Washington. One way or another._

“This your crib?” She gestured to the fairly pathetic makeshift den, illuminated by warm orange light. He’d chosen a corner of the basement near to the main door, the little sleeping area barricaded with stacks of boxes, covered in odds and ends.

“Uh…hell yeah. MTV are hittin’ me up next week.”

Sam smirked, making herself at home. She sat on the pile of material and shrugged off her bag, followed by her coat. She pretended not to notice the way Josh’s eyes lingered where her jumper rode up slightly.

When he moved to the other side of the room, Sam took the time to send a quick text to Chris. Her battery was only at 11%.

_Don’t worry. Still alive. B &B is nice._

Even her texts sounded like bad liars.

“Will _Walter_ be worried about you?” she asked Josh as she put her phone away, rooting around in her bag. “I notice you don’t exactly have a cellphone.” She found a comb and began industrially brushing out the dried blood from the back of her head, winching when she caught the wound.

“Like I said, I stay the night here sometimes, if I don’t fancy trekking all the way back to the Sanatorium. He’s used to it.” Josh disappeared behind the boxes, shuffling things around.

She frowned. “You don’t, er… _hunt_ together?”

“Normally. Sometimes I go by myself.”

He sounded so casual about it, as if he wasn’t tempting death every time he set foot outside at night. She hated the thought of finding him only for him to be killed tomorrow, but kept her thoughts to herself.

“That’s pretty brave of you,” she acknowledged quietly instead.

He reappeared, eyeing her cautiously. He was holding a thermos and a cloth. “S’not about being brave,” he muttered darkly, but sat down in front of her and opened the thermos.

She watched him in silence, bemused, as he poured what looked to be cold water onto the cloth and wrapped it around his finger.

He moved to touch her face with it, pausing when he caught her expression.

“Uh…I was just gonna clean that cut for you. I mean, here,” he shoved the cloth at her hurriedly, embarrassed, “You can do it. Obviously.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, you do it. I’ll sit real still. Promise.” She tried not to read too much into why she wanted Josh to clean her face instead of doing it herself.

He cleared his throat, nodded.

Then he set to work.

They sat in silence, bar the occasional hiss of pain, which Josh profusely apologised for.

She gradually grew used to the sensation, closing her eyes. “Josh?”

“Hm?”

“I’m really glad you’re OK.”

His hand stilled for a moment, before slowly continuing. “Define okay.”

“I mean…I’m just so glad nothing really bad happened to you up here. Physically.”

There was pregnant pause as they both seemed to wallow in the knowledge of his mental illness.

“Well sure, Ashely stabbing me and you hitting me with a baseball bat was pretty bad, but I got over it.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I just meant…how you were, in the mines-”

“We don’t have to go into that right now,” he told her sharply, pulling his hand away.

She grabbed him by the wrist. “Then when? All I want to know, really, is…how did you get from that to _this?”_ She gestured at him. “I’m not saying you’re not still suffering, Josh, but compared to how you were when I last saw you…how did spending a year on this mountain actually help?”

He gently pulled his hand away, resigned. He toyed distractedly with the cloth. “It didn’t. Time was the only thing that helped. I was so out of it when Walter found me, I don’t even remember it. Next thing I knew I was at the Sanatorium, although I didn’t realise it was a looney bin for a while. Walter lives in the main reception area, far away from the cells where he keeps the Wendigos. It’s all furnished - you can almost pretend you’re just in a huge house, sometimes.”

She shivered but said nothing, wanting him to carry on.

“At first I was hopeless. To me he was just some stranger with a gnarly scar - I tried to attack him more than once. Eventually he got me eating without throwing the food back in his face. He bought me new clothes. He’d talk to me all the time, even if he was just describing the weather outside. It got me talking back - helped me remember how.” He scratched the back of his head bashfully. “I still heard voices occasionally - still saw my sisters watching me from doorways or sat across from me. But Walt got me the Buspirone and some Xanex, kept talking to me. I was thinking, _feeling_ like a mostly functioning human again. I didn’t like to be alone, to start with. He left Mr Wolf with me when he went out.”

“Mr Wolf?”

“Yeah, he’s this huge wolf that follows Walter around. He’s actually pretty-”

“Wait, Mike told me about him! He called him Wolfie. Apparently he seriously helped him get through the Sanatorium when it was overrun.”

_I’ll have to let Mike know he’s still alive and well._

“Sounds like Mr Wolf. He’s a sweetheart, really. And I’m not even a dog person.”

She smiled at him. Josh looked away.

“Walter was always upfront with me - he’s a no-nonsense sorta guy. Even when I still babbling like a madhouse inmate he’d tell me about the Wendigos and how he hunted them. He even acted them out, sometimes, trying to show me how they moved and sensed prey - pretty sick of him, actually, considering I was already mentally scarred and one freakout away from a psychotic break. But that’s just Walt.”

He laughed under his breath. “I think that’s actually what helped the most. He didn’t treat me like a fragile bird, didn’t want to or have the time to. He just treated me like a guy who needed to get his shit together. Eventually he was showing me how to use his weapons, and I was helping him invent new ones. I really threw myself into it - the Wendigo stuff. I guess it took my mind off things. They were never as scary to me as the ghosts of my sisters.”

“One day he invited me to come with him on a hunt,” he shrugged. “The rest is history.”

Sam mulled over this plethora of information, keenly watching him. “Sounds like a good old case of facing your fears really did work for you, huh?”

He laughed sardonically. “Maybe. I dunno, Sam. It’s fucked up, I know it is, but…I feel like with every Wendigo we capture, my sisters can rest a little easier. They don’t haunt me so much.”

He looked hollow eyed and a little shaky - she pulled him to sit beside her, slotting her hand into his.

_It’s cold._

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore,” she assured him, watching him watch their joint hands, as if that image held a secret worth discovering. “You had to get better in your own way, and I’m proud of you, Josh. Even if you’re not quite there yet. You got this far all on your own.”

He drew his gaze from their hands and looked at her, blue eyes dazzling again the olive shade of his skin. A genuine, bona-fide Josh Washington smile emerged on his face, and she had never felt so glad to see those pearly whites.

“Now you’re just flirting with me.”

She laughed, trying to ignore the very real stutter of her heart. “You wish.”

“Hell yeah I do.”

She looked away from his intense gaze, his silly grin, slightly flustered. She drew her hand out of his.

“Thank you for cleaning my cut. It feels loads better.”

“Well, thanks for not shooting me with a shotgun earlier. That would have put a downer on things, am I right?”

She laughed.

They settled down but left the gas-lamps on, preferring the light to keep the shadows at bay. Their coats were used as blankets, and for a while they simply lay in silence, huddled close, but not touching.

Earlier today, she’d been mourning Joshua Washington’s missing body. Now they were laid together in the dark, keeping close for warmth.

Time and time again, life proved itself very strange.

She felt him shuffle closer, stopping just short of brushing against her back. She could feel his body heat.

Sam wasn’t an idiot. She could sense his eyes boring into the back of her head. And in the stark light of day, she would probably have teased him for it, or made a creeper joke.

But it was dark, and quiet, and Josh’s attentiveness didn’t creep her out. Instead, she felt incredibly warm. She listened to him fidget, hand brushing her shoulder as if by accident, and she decided to put him out of his misery.

Sam shuffled back into his space, pressing her back flush to his chest. She felt him stiffen.

“Do you mind?” she whispered, eyes drooping, pretending like she had no idea he’d been looking for an excuse to get closer.

“…No,” he breathed into her neck. She shivered.

Slowly, she felt his arm wrap around her waist, pulling her even closer. He took deep, slow breaths into her hair, as if he were trying to breath her in.

Sam fell asleep to fluttering sensations wrecking havoc in her stomach.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please kudos and comment if you enjoyed!


	4. new waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 4, I apologise about the wait. Enjoy!

 

It was the first night in a year he hadn’t been plagued with nightmares. 

Josh woke slowly, gently - for once he didn’t jump out of sleep screaming or crying.

 _It’s because of her,_ he thought surely to himself, blinking into a haze of yellow hair. _She drove them away._

The basement was dimly lit, only a single shaft of morning light illuminating their surroundings, but he could see the slope of her shoulder and the curve of her waist.

Sam.

He still found it difficult to understand how she’d come back - _why_ she’d come back. She said it was to say goodbye to him. Or his ghost, or whatever.

Trust Sam to see the best in him, even after he’d chased her through the lodge in nothing but a towel.

_She looked damn good, though._

He had absolutely zero right to be getting… _excited_ at the memory of Sam’s tanned legs flashing as she ran through the darkness of the basement, but in his defence it was a totally normal guy-problem, in the morning! And she was warm, and pressed up against him as if they’d slept together a hundred times before, and…

 _Get a grip, you fruitcake,_ he told himself sternly. _She might still think she’s your friend, but if there was ever any chance of more…it’s seriously fucking finite-o now._

He shifted his hips away slightly, trying to be inconspicuous.

He’d always had a crush on Sam. But he’d buried it so damn deep even _he_ believed it didn’t exist sometimes.

It was for the best, he supposed. Even if Sam had forgiven him, her affections were wasted on the freakshow that was Josh Washington.

_Hey baby, wanna elope on this murder-mountain and kill man-eating freaks with me?_

Nice one.

“Mm…”

Josh jerked his hand away as if were on fire.

Sam shifted onto her back, an adorable line between her brows as she struggled between sleep and waking. He resisted the urge to smooth it away with his thumb.

“Mmm…” She was waking up.

Josh studied the attractive drop of her neck - the beauty of her profile. It was rare you met a person who was truly just as beautiful on the inside as they were out. But that was Sam.

He remembered the first time they’d met.

 

_“Josh! Get the door!”_

_He scoffed, glancing up the stairs at his sister who was doing a fine job of imitating a headless chicken. She had wet hair and was apparently in desperate need of a dryer._

_“Why should I?” he bated her._

_She leaned over the banister and hissed at him, “I’m. Not. Ready! This is the first time I’ve had a friend come over in like, forever, and I look like a drowned rat! Quit being a jerk and get the door!” She disappeared into her room._

_“Love you too, Han.”_

_He opened the door, fully expecting a replica of his sister; another fourteen-year old bookworm hiding behind her hair, but instead he got a bright-eyed, blonde haired beauty wearing tight jeans and a confidant smile._

_“Hi! Um, I’m Sam. Hannah invited me over?”_

_It took him slightly longer than it should have to reply. He was still trying to process that this girl - who looked exactly the type to become future cheerleader captain and popular socialite - was in fact the classmate Hannah had started hanging out with._

_“Er, right. I’m Josh.” He held out his hand, then realised how lame that was and removed it. Sam’s arm twitched, as though she wasn’t sure what was happening._

_Why was he like this._

_“Can I…come in?”_

_His face was burning. “Oh - yeah! Sorry, yeah. Come in.”_

_He watched as she took in their house - seemingly in awe of the white marble, the tiki wood, the huge framed movie posters shining in the light. He almost felt embarrassed about being rich._

_“Hannah’s just trying to find her hairdryer. She says she looks like a drowned rat. Which she does.”_

_God, what was he saying? She was going to think he was a complete asshole who picked on his little sister. Which he was. And did. But she didn’t need to know that._

_Unexpectedly, Sam smirked over her shoulder at him. “If only I had a sibling to make fun of…do you like pranks?”_

_Josh felt something strange and unfamiliar flutter in his chest. “Uh-huh,” he replied stupidly._

_She grinned. “You wanna help me hide this hairdryer?”_

_And that was it._

_He was a total goner._

 

“Mm…Josh?”

She was squinting at him, trying to blink sleep out her eyes, and he was staring creepily at her with a red face.

Everything and nothing had changed.

“Morning, sleepy-head. Alright?”

Could it really be this easy? To talk and joke with her like he had before?

“Uh, can’t complain. To say I’m sleeping in the same basement I once got chased through by a killer clown, I’m quite at ease.”

She immediately grinned at him, as if trying to diffuse the immense guilt and mortification she must have known he felt. Reminding him that they could try and move past last year.

He smiled weakly at her. “Yeah, well it’s not all about _you,_ Samantha. I once got attacked by a crazy woman with a baseball bat in here, too.”

She huffs amusedly, and pushes herself up onto her elbows. Josh realises he is leaning over her, and hurriedly gives her room.

“God, I bet my phone’s dead. What time is it?”

Josh doesn’t own a watch. “Uh…”

No sooner had they pondered the lateness of the hour than did the lateness of the hour become apparent; above them there was a terrific bang, and an excited babble of muffled voices though the ceiling.

The looked at each other in horror.

“Shit!” Sam exclaimed, scrambling to gather her things. “Shit, _shit!_ The Clemontes are here! We overslept!”

“You know about the Clemontes?”

“Sure, Chris told me about them!” She squinted suspiciously at him whilst hopping into her snowboots. He tried to school his features into something remotely akin to seriousness. “You know them, too?” she asked.

“Not personally,” he admitted, donning his coat, “But me and Walt have seen the guy coming up here once or twice - Julian? He came to see the lodge. I, uh, left him a few gifts. You know, creepy warnings and shit - my signature moves.”

_I’m the actual height of self-deprecation._

Sam didn’t seem to find this so funny. “Trying to scare him out of his wits?”

“If it meant getting him off the mountain, then yeah,” he replied somewhat defensively. “You want him and his family to die, too?”

“Of course not!” she hissed, “Don’t be ridiculous. I was actually planning on staying in Blackwood last night, if you must know - I wanted to talk to them. Try and persuade them to leave myself.”

“Then we’re on the same page.” He gathered the last of his things, few as they were, and waited for Sam to don her bag.

He could hear the stomping of feet above them, the high, delighted cry of a young girl.

His felt his right hand begin to tremor. He hid it in his pocket.

“Ready?”

_Just don’t have a breakdown in the middle of a break_ _out_ _, you spaz._

Sam nodded. “Ready.”

Quietly as they could, they shimmied out the tiny window - Josh tried very hard not to enjoy boosting Sam up, hands right beneath her ass, and failed miserably.

He closed the window behind them and cautiously stepped down the side of the house. They peered round the corner.

The front door was open, and a tall, dark-haired man in a blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves was talking to two men. They were dressed in matching shirts and coats - must have been hired to help bring the family’s luggage up the mountain. Josh’s mother had done the same.

“Shit,” Sam hissed, ducking back. “They’re stood right there.”

“Just give it a minute.”

After another few moments, the men shook the hand of who Josh assumed to be Julian Clemonte and took their leave, and Mr Clemonte stepped back inside. Some luggage was still on the porch.

“Now,” he whispered, grabbing her arm, “Before he comes back.”

They hurriedly jogged across the glade, slinking into the darkness of the trail like possums caught rummaging through trash.

“Great,” Sam exhaled happily, adjusting her hair. “Now to go back.”

“What?”

“Well I’m here, aren’t I? Now’s a good a time as any to talk to them. So long as they didn’t see me crawling out their basement, it’s all good.”

He both admired and hated her tenacity. “You won’t get anywhere, you know. If a pig’s head and creepy letters written in blood didn’t dissuade them, nothing will.”

“Josh!”

“What? Walt sent the letters, not me.”

“And the pig’s head?” She was at least five inches shorter than him, and her eyes only came up to his chin, but with her hands on her hips in that disapproving manner she still managed to look down her nose at him, as if he were a naughty child.

He avoided her gaze.

She sniffed. “Ugh. Whatever. I’m going to talk to him. You better wait here, unless you finally wanna come out as _not-dead?”_

“I’ll stay in the closet, thank you.”

She snorted, turned on her heel and marched over towards the lodge like she owned the place.

_This woman is too damn much._

He moved closer, sticking to the trees. He watched as Sam practically ran into Julian Clemonte when he came back outside, pausing as he reached for another bag.

“…Can I help you?”

He knew what the guy must be thinking, looking at Sam’s cut-up face: who the hell is this wild mountain women and where did she come from?

“Hi! Sorry, my name’s Sam. I was…I was here last year. I’m a friend of Josh Washington.”

Josh noted her use of present tense. He felt his pulse throb in his throat.

“So you’re…one of those kids in the accident? With the bears?”

He could only see the back of Sam’s head, but he imagined her look of stifled annoyance.

“Yes…the bears. Listen, Mr Clemonte, is it? I’m just-”

“Sorry, why are you here? And what happened to your face?”

She touched her eyebrow self-consciously. “Er…rock-climbing accident.”

Josh snorted.

“I came back to…to talk to _you,_ actually.”

He saw Clemonte’s sharp, tanned face tighten in disbelief. “Really. You came all this way. You’re from California, right? And you actually chose to come back, after what happened?”

Sam told him surely, “Some things are worth the effort, sir. Besides, it seems you’re not put off by what happened to us here.”

Clemonte shrugged lightly, leaning back on the doorframe. “Is that it? You tryin’ to warn me off this place? Join the queue, kid.”

Josh noticed the familiar change in Sam’s stance - she shifted her feet, tightened her fists, raised her chin. All signs that she was about to smack down some law and order.

“I realise I can’t make you leave, Mr Clemonte, but take it from someone who’s stayed in this lodge - _on the mountain_ \- many times before. It can be beautiful, and scenic, and private as you like. But…this place has a dark history for a reason, sir. The _wildlife_ is pretty crazy, to start with. If either of your daughters went wandering around-”

“My daughters aren’t idiots,” he told her sharply, keenly searching her expression. “And they certainly wouldn’t be foolish enough to run out into the woods in the middle of the night.”

Josh immediately felt blood rushing to his head, and his hand began shaking again. He flexed his fingers around his machete.

He felt Beth’s presence beside him, but knew not to look.

 _He’s talking about me and Hannah,_ she whispered angrily into his ear. _Aren’t you going to do anything? Aren’t you going to defend our memory? What sort of brother are you, Josh?_

He also knew not to reply. Instead he watched Sam.

She appeared to be very tense.

“With all due respect, Mr Clemonte, what happened to Hannah and Beth Washington was not their fault.”

“I never said I was talking about-”

“I think it’s quite obvious you were,” she interrupted him bluntly. He raised an eyebrow. “But please, I’m only saying this because I care - there may well still be a maniac roaming this mountain. Didn’t you receive warnings? Find a pig’s severed head?”

He squinted at her. “How do you know about that? We didn’t release that to the press.“

_Damnit._

He shouldn’t have mentioned it. Now she’d messed up.

Sam stayed calm. “You must have slipped up to someone. Heard it from a friend.” She hurriedly changed the subject. “What I’m saying is, I think you’d be far better served by scrapping this place and selling the land rights back to the Blackwood Rangers. That way no one could own a property here again. Please, Mr Clemonte, for the sake of your family, at least consider it.”

“What’s this?” An elegantly quaffed, blonde women in her early forties appeared beside her husband, looking speculatively between him and Sam.

“This is Sam,” Mr Clemonte told her with a clear tone of condescension. “And she was just leaving.”

Sam was determined. “I was just telling your husband, Mrs Clemonte, about the dangers of this mountain - me and my friends have seen it for ourselves.”

Andrea Clemonte squinted at her. “Aren’t you one of those kids that had some trouble up here? Around this time last year?”

“Yes, ma’am. The son of the Washingtons - Josh - was a good friend of mine. He…he died.”

“What on earth are you doing back?”

“Because I felt it was important to remind you that this place is more than cursed - it’s actively dangerous. There may be a…maniac, still on this mountain.”

“And she thinks we should sell the land rights back to the rangers,” Mr Clemonte scoffed, clearly loosing his patience.

Mrs Clemonte sighed. “Trust me, young lady - I was sceptical about buying the place too. Still am, if I’m honest,” she eyed her husband scornfully, “But we’ve bought the place now. We’re here to stay for Christmas. If anything odd happens, trust me - I’ll be the first to pack my bags.” She glanced at her husband pointedly again.

Josh felt slightly hopeful - clearly Mrs Clemonte was less enthusiastic about the purchase than her husband. She might be the key to getting the family out of Blackwood Pines.

Sam appeared to have the same thought. “Well, ma’am, if you ever need to ask any questions, or if anything… _strange_ happens, please call me on this number.” She handed the older woman a scrap of wrinkled paper. “And stay safe.”

The bemused couple stared after her as she left.

Josh rejoined her in the darkness of the trail, watching her carefully.

She was pissed. “They’re not going to leave.”

“Not easily,” he acknowledged. “But at least you tried, Sam.”

“We’ll think of something else,” she nodded surely to herself, walking back down the trail. Josh followed her bemusedly.

“Where are you going?”

“You live at the Sanotorium, don’t you? Or were we going to hide in the Clemonte’s basement the rest of the week?”

A small part of him wanted to rebel against that - the _Clemonte’s_ basement. It wasn’t theirs, it was his. The lodge belonged to _his_ family. And yet…

_They’re welcome to it, aren’t they? There’s nothing good left there._

“You sound like you might prefer the basement,” he noted quietly, walking beside her. “I wouldn’t blame you. Sam, you don’t have to do this. Go _home_ , already.”

She didn’t even look at him. “I already told you I’m going nowhere without you. At least not until this week is up. Besides - the Sanatorium is safe, right? It must be, if you live there.”

He nodded begrudgingly. “All the Wendigos are locked up tight, deep in the lower levels. Walt put loads of native talismans and crafts around the perimeter - I guess they must work, coz the Wendigos we haven’t captured tend to stay away from the place. It’s not like it was a year ago.”

She hummed thoughtfully, clearly trying to push down her nerves. “Well, with two big, strong Wendigo hunters by my side, I guess it’s technically the safest spot on the mountain!”

She smiled winningly at him.

How was it that he simultaneously wanted her to hate him like she should - feel the awful burn of her contempt - and stay by her side, in her favour, so she might always grant him those electric smiles?

He wouldn’t mind living in Sam’s shadow. She was so bright, everyone else around her was a little darker for it. Him most of all.

_Calling Dr Phil! We’ve got a code red!_

Fuck’s sake. He was a mental, living on a cursed mountain. He wasn’t entitled to things like friends, or Sam’s smiles. One day, possibly soon, he was going to die gruesomely at the hand of a ravenous Wendigo, and his story would have reached it’s fitting end. That’s what was supposed to happen, last year when Hannah dragged him off into some dark corner and left him there. Saving him for later, most likely.

Josh was living on borrowed time.

He had been stupid, letting Sam find him. He’d followed her because he wanted to make sure she got off the mountain okay, but he couldn’t help himself, like a moth drawn to light - she’d unmasked him. Now it would be so much harder. If he’d just kept to himself she would have left and been safe back in Cali, and when he died, one day soon, she’d never know he’d survived in the first place.

But he was a fuck-up, and couldn’t do anything right, so now she was trying to _reconnect_ and get him to leave with her. She’d be disappointed when he didn’t.

He’d be fucking distraught.

 _Why couldn’t you have just stayed away?_ He thought furiously, watching her pace ahead of him. _Why couldn’t you have just let me carry on believing you didn’t give a shit - were glad I’d died?_

But now she was here, and it was almost like…

Like _before._

His head was so fucked.

“Your castle awaits, m’lady.” He bowed dramatically, waving her on, and Sam laughed over her shoulder at him.

Her laughter was like bells - melodic and bright. Somehow, through her own fear and uncertainty, she was always happy and brave when she needed to be.

Her light burned bright, and he felt warmed by it.

_So fucked._

 

…

 

The Sanatorium was ominous to look at even in the daylight, and Josh somehow felt embarrassed when Sam saw it again.

It was already hilarious enough that he lived in an abandoned nut house, considering his exciting history of mental health issues, but inviting his possible dream girl back to the place was borderline hysterical. Not that it was _his_ idea.

“Changed your mind yet?” he asked her with a raised brow, watching her from the corner of his eye.

“No.” She turned to look at him. “You said it’s safe now. I trust you.”

He frowned, searching her open, mild face.

_Why? How?_

He still couldn’t understand the ease of her forgiveness, but at this point he daren’t question it further. He only hoped it was sincere.

“Shall we?”

He led her across the snow-covered courtyard, passing the frozen fountain that never flowed and the crumbling garden walls - sights that had become familiar to him as the back of his hand.

He could see that Sam was trying to take it all in, discovering this area for the first time. He supposed it was creepy, but Josh was sure he’d become desensitised to creepy shit over the last year. A crumbling asylum did little to unnerve him when the ghosts of his sisters were whispering in his ears on a regular basis.

He led Sam up the stone steps of the entrance.

“Careful,” he warned her, “They’ve iced over a little.”

She rolled her eyes. “Rock-climber, remember?”

Nevertheless she heeded him, carefully watching where she stepped.

Josh hid a smile and knocked on the Sanatorium’s heavy front door.

They had to wait barely half a minute before the sudden sound of scuffling and grunting, and the door abruptly swung inwards. Mr Wolf shot out, excitedly rubbing himself against Josh’s legs, swinging his great head.

From the darkness of the doorway Walt’s grizzled face appeared, gun at his side.

He hardly spared Josh a second glance - instead his eyes immediately alighted on Sam.

“Joshua,” he drawled, eyeing the newcomer with interest, “I thought we were in the Wendigo-Huntin’ business, not the Kidnappin’ of Young Women business. Did you get the two confused? Forget to take your meds?”

Josh could feel Sam bristling, but he just smiled at her, then at Walter.

“Relax, Walt. This is-”

“Sam,” the young woman in question interrupted him. “My name is Sam.” She came to stand beside him.

“I know who y’are,” Walter grumbled. He crossed his arms, assessing her with a hawk’s gaze. His damaged eye shone milky in the light. “You were one of those kids up here last year. With Joshua.”

“Yeah.”

“You were the one who kept your head, when all your friends were callin’ me a murderer and a psycho, ready to chase me out the lodge,” he nodded to himself, thinking. “You were the one who wanted to hear me out when I tried to tell ya’ll ‘bought the Wendigo.”

Josh glanced at Sam in surprise. He hadn’t heard this before now.

_Makes sense. Sensible Sam the Sensible._

Sam shrugged. “It felt irresponsible to ignore you when you clearly knew more about this place than we did. I was willing to hear anything if it meant that night could make even the slightest bit of sense.”

She caught his eye - Josh quickly looked away. He could feel Walter watching them the way he watched everything - with quiet deliberation and intensity. Normally it didn’t faze him, but right now he felt on edge.

“And you’re back for more.” Walter looked between Josh and Sam in bewilderment. “Am I goin’ crazy, or did I not tell you people how stupid it was coming back here? What is it with you kids? Josh, why are all your friends so damn stupid?”

“Hey!” Sam cried defensively.

“She _is_ stupid,” Josh agreed, determinedly ignoring Sam’s murderous gaze boring a hole in the side of his head, “But out of all of them, she’s probably the least moronic.” He squared up to Walter, looking him dead in the eye. “Sam is gonna stay here a few days. Now she knows I’m alive, she’s trying to convince me to go home with her. She’s promised to leave by the end of the week with or without me. Right, Sammy?” He dipped his head towards her.

She scowled.

“I tried to get rid of her, but y’know women, Walter. They obsess over bad boys with flamethrowers.” Josh waggled his eyebrows.

Walter scoffed, eyeing Sam again, before apparently coming to a silent decision. He waved them in. “It’s your funeral, girly. Though I’d wager there wouldn’t be much of a body left to bury.”

Sam admirably ignored Walter’s sadistic grin, sliding past into the foyer. Josh scowled at him as he walked by.

Walter blinked. “What?”

“Could you, like, _try_ and act like less of a freak, Walt? Just while Sam is here? She’s scared enough as it is, man.”

“Doesn’t look scared to me. Besides, who you calling a freak, clown-boy?”

“Oh, nice. Yeah. Good one.”

Walter sneered. He closed the door behind them.

Sam approached the centre of the huge reception hall, looking around in awe and trepidation. The ceiling was high and badly patched up, the smallest drifts of snowfall slipping through. Shadows laced the high corners of the room, the staircase on the righthand side crumbled to pieces, but in the centre of the room there was the warm, orange light of a fire, and mis-matched couches arranged in a circle upon a huge red rug. An office desk and chair resided by the firelight, home to Walter’s private things and his prized cigar box. Towards the wall old boxes were filled with clothes, food, weapons.

This was the place Josh had come to call home. The little enclave of warmth and comfort in the middle of a hulking, frozen nightmare.

Sam ran her fingers over the back of a couch, taking it all in. She watched as Mr Wolf contentedly settled himself upon the rug, bathed orange in the firelight and perfectly at ease. He seemed unfazed by her arrival.

Josh approached her, searching for any sign of regret, or a change of heart. This one room might have held something more pleasant and secure, but it could not erase the shadows that lurked in every corner - the knowledge of what lay caged beneath them, four floors down.

_It’s now or never. Will she stay or will she go?_

“Sam?”

She looked at him, golden hair glowing. She smiled, small and genuine. “I’m ok.”

They looked at each other, contemplating, when Walt gruffly interrupted; “Are you both quite done? These guns won’t clean themselves.”

Josh sighed irritably, pulling himself away. “Alright, _Adolf_ \- I’m coming.”

“Not you,” he pointed at Sam. “Her.”

Sam blinked. “Me?”

“I wanna see if you’re useful for anythin’, besides making Joshua go all doe-eyed.”

Josh nearly chocked on his tongue. “H-hang _on_ , you mental old-”

“Yeah, ok.” Sam smirked at him, accepting the large shotgun Walter proffered her. “I can do that.”

Josh watched Sam as she cleaned and oiled the gun with surprising efficiency, impressing even Walter. He left her to it, apparently deciding she could handle the rest on her own, and sat down beside Josh.

“I like her,” he announced abruptly, watching her work with something worryingly close to fondness.

Josh scowled at him. “Everyone likes her.”

“Apparently so,” Walt mumbled quietly under his breath.

Josh scowled at him some more.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos and comment if you liked!


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